Clearing and settlement in the highland-lowland transition zone of northern Thailand

Malaysia

The Philippines

Indonesia

Conclusion: government-sponsored versus spontaneous settlement

References

The Philippines

In the Philippines there is evidently a greater share of spontaneous land
settlement. The social differentiation of the settlers ranges from the
forest-clearing pioneer with a poor subsistence economy to the better equipped
and more experienced farmers and finally to agricultural contractors whose aim
is to open up larger agricultural areas with the help of capital, machinery, and
specialized types of farming (e.g. sugar-cane, abaca). The pioneers frequently
have to leave their clearings to others due to indebtedness and start again at
new settlement frontiers.

During 1948-1960 roughly 1.2 million people, mostly spontaneous migrants,
came to Mindanao, especially to the provinces of Cotabato and Davao (Krinks
1970). This flow of "non-assisted migrants ' had already begun around 1919
and continued into the 1970s. Krinks (1970) observed a characteristic regional
grouping of the colonies according to the settlers' origins (e.g. Ilocos, Cebu,
etc.) and the continual following-on of friends and relatives from home, for
whom often unofficial "reserves" of uncleared land were kept. On the
other hand, this preservation of contact with the home areas by the new
colonists is a more general process which has already been mentioned in relation
to the spontaneous forest-clearing areas of Thailand and will come up again with
Indonesian migrations.

Until the intensified revival of state-directed settlement policy by an
ambitious fiveyear plan (1975-1980) inaugurated during the phase of martial law
by former President Marcos (aiming to settle 22,000 families), all preceding
programmes together (19391975) had moved 38,212 families (about 192,000 people)
into state directed and supported resettlement projects. Spontaneous land
clearing during the same period must have been considerably stronger. The slow
progress of statedirected resettlement up to that time is also demonstrated by a
comparison with the statistical figure of 1.5 million people taking part in
interregional migrations in the Philippines during 19601970-most of them,
however, moving into Luzon's growing urban centres and only some 318,000 to
southern and 44,000 to northern Mindanao.

The modern resettlement programmes coincide with some new features. Beginning
in 1972 (the start of martial law) land reform was pushed much more intensely
and since that time a considerable number of former tenants became the owners of
their tilled land. The state is compensating the former large landowners. The
new smallholderowners-mainly rice or maize farmers-are contributing to this over
longer ranges by gradual repayment of state-guaranteed credits. Second, the
resettlement programmes have been designed still more strongly to effect social
pacification. This applies to the problems of the heavily over-populated core
regions (central Luzon, parts of the Bisayas, especially Cebu, etc.) but still
more to the ongoing conflicts between Christians and Muslims in the south, which
gained in intensity in the 1960s and early 1970s. The burning and plundering of
entire villages (including resettlement projects), and even towns, has set large
numbers of refugees-1 million according to official announcements-on the move.
To counteract this Marcos proclaimed in 1975 a further 106,912 ha of land for
public settlement schemes, designed for returning refugees and also for rebel
returnees who declare their willingness to return to peaceful agriculture
(Hanisch 1977; Huke 1963).

In his evaluation of land settlement in South-East Asia Bahrin (1973) holds
that although the conflicts between Muslims and Christians in the southern
Philippines have different causes conflicts over settlement land play an
important role. Several hot spots involved in such clashes are situated in the
resettlement areas located in the provinces of Lanao and Cotabato, Mindanao.
Although the establishment of the settlements was motivated by the explicit aim
of national integration, exactly the opposite has happened. From his experiences
with the Malaysian resettlement policy he advises all South-East Asian states to
take special care when dealing with political problems associated with land
development. Besides the Philippino problem and the conflicts between native
inhabitants and the (often ethnically and religiously different) transmigrants
from Java and Bali in the Indonesian outer islands, he points also to the
dangers of analogous resettlement projects of the Thai government in the Muslim
minority areas in southern Thailand as well as to those of possible attemtps to
include West Malaysian settlers in projects of colonization in East Malaysia.
All these examples would demand "more than mere administrative
understanding and textbook resolutions if national disasters are to be
avoided" (Bahrin 1973, 55).

Hanisch (1977) quotes numerous examples of disturbing delays by bureaucracy,
corruption, and slow development of the necessary infrastructural facilites,
which hampers the development of the colonies. The allocation of new
resettlement areas can usually be set in motion only by pressure from local
authorities-they too are under pressure from squatters who spontaneously
penetrated cleared areas (timber concession areas) and other open land suitable
for cultivation. In 1975/1976, 49 settlement projects comprised of 47,900
settler families were under the control of the DAR (Department of Agriculture)
(roughly the equivalent of 1 per cent of the rural population of the
Philippines). However, only 29 per cent of these families were enlisted by the
government plan from the over-populated regions and brought to the new colonies
(on Mindanao, Palawan, etc.). An additional 1.3 per cent entered the project
from outside at their own cost, whilst 40.7 per cent were squatters already
established at those sites and a further 29 per cent original native inhabitants
who had received land and the new settler's status too.

According to this breakdown by Hanisch, only the first two groups, altogether
around 14,500 families or 87,000 inhabitants actually received aid from the
government. In the period 1960-1970, however, an estimated total of 362,000
people in fact migrated to Mindanao. The agricultural area of the Philippines
grew (according to figures from the National Economic Development Agency) from
1950 to 1973 by 3-4 million ha. With an estimate of four to six ha per settler
family, only about five to eight per cent of this land has gone to settlers in
state directed and supported projects. The majority of new land development is
credited to spontaneous clearing, a situation not very different from that in
Thailand.

Recently a number of settlement projects have been covered by World Bank
loans, mainly to improve the infrastructure, agricultural production, land
titling and surveying, health services, and forest development. In 1977 the
Philippine Ministry of Agrarian Reform (MAR) administered a total of 44
settlement schemes, with an aggregate area of 734,825 ha and 49,898 settler
families.

FIG. 3. Resettlement schemes administered by MAR
in 1978 and population density in the Philippines (see table 4 for figures)

During the early 1980s the situation of rebellion and civil warfare grew to
new dimensions. It is interfering with settlement expansion in a very dramatic
way. The Muslim resistance-although still aiming for autonomy for the three to
four million Islamic population in the south-seems at present to be the
relatively smaller problem. It has caused tragic losses. Some sources put it up
to about 60,000 casualties and around a million refugees driven from their
destroyed homes.

Social and political unrest have led to a revival of the New People's Army
and, moreover, a revival of the relocation of scattered squatter homesteads into
new militarycontrolled "strategic hamlets." This occurred not only
during the Vietnam War but also with the "emergency settlements"
during the guerrilla warfare in former Malaya. Whereas this example of
large-scale enforced resettlement of (originally illegal or
"semi-legal") colonists in scattered holdings has become well
documented and thoroughly researched history, the formation of recent Filipino
"strategic hamlets" is in constant flux and besides press reports no
exact figures are yet available. For the moment this new element in the
processes of planned and spontaneous settlement in the Philippines can only be
noted here, a full survey of the figures and structures (and the sufferings and
unrest amongst the settlers too!) remains a task for the future.

One final source of clearing and new agricultural land remains and that is
the rapid spread of international agro-business. Despite the ongoing civil war
in certain parts of Mindanao, it is just this large island, rich in natural
resources and landreserves, that has attracted a number of American, Japanese,
and Filipino agrobusiness firms (including some big international concerns),
which have cleared and established large areas of pineapple and banana
plantations. They add considerably to the amount of newly opened land and to the
provision of jobs and export income for the Philippines. On the negative side
there have also been some attempts to force out squatter settlers who may happen
to disturb the acquisition and organization of a continuous plantation area.

Despite the various problems and shortcomings, the statistical figures for
the total growth of all cultivated land in the Philippines from 1948 to 1972 are
quite remarkable (Hanisch 1977, table 4, p. 147): 3.8 million ha in 1948, 5.6
million ha in 1960, and 6.5 million ha in 1972. The harvested area rose from 4.7
million ha in 1948 to 9.4 million ha in 1972 and 10.7 million ha in 1975. The
figures reveal the rapid growth of doublecropping, partly on rice land, through
improved irrigation techniques (the irrigated area rose from 400,000 ha in 1948
to 958,000 ha in 1972, and since that date considerably more). The rice area
increased from 2 million ha in 1948 to 3.24 million ha in 1972 and 3.6 million
ha in 1979 (Palacpac 1980). There has also been an intensification through
improved rotations on dry-field land. The enormous extension in total cultivated
area, however, is an indication of the combined effects of planning and of
spontaneous clearing of new
land.